Paul Reiser's break from stand-up comedy wasn't intentional. It just sort of slipped to the back burner with the success of the TV sitcom "Mad About You" in the 1990s and as other projects came along.

"I always knew I wanted to get back to it. I was waiting for a clear sign, and in life you don't always get a clear sign," he said.

A few years ago, Rieser decided it was now or never to take the stage again.

"It was interesting. It was very much the same process that I did when I was 18 and I did it for the first time. I knew how to do it better, but starting over is starting over," he said.

Reiser said he found it refreshing how little the scene had changed.

"I think it's one of the few things in life that hasn't changed. The world has changed so the subjects may be different, but there is nothing more low-tech than stand up. It's a person talking to other people. It's primitive," he said.

Reiser will perform this primitive activity on Saturday, Feb. 10, at The Rialto in Loveland.

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"I always tell people that I'm not smart enough to make things up, so I can only talk about what happens to me," Reiser said. Topics that come up in his act include relationships, aging and family.

"They are all in the same wheelhouse," he said of all his projects, from TV to books. "I am not going to sit down and write 'Star Wars' or 'Game of Thrones.' My brain never goes there. My books and 'Mad About You' are all about relationships. That's where my brain always takes me, just because I am trying to figure it out. I am not trying to make up material. I am writing material, because I am trying to figure out my life," he said.

From left Dominique Damschen as Mabel Buchman, Helen Hunt as Jamie Buchman, Paul Reiser as Paul Buchman in the "Mad About You" series finale.

The immediacy of the stage

Reiser is finding out that his audience is right there with him. Those who were at the same point in their lives when "Mad About You" started are sharing the same experiences now.

"I feel like my audience is sort of coming with me. I find people — I don't want to say misery loves company — but people like to know they aren't the only ones going through it. When I talk about my kids and my family and all the problems I'm having, when people laugh it's 'cause they are going, 'It's not just me, this guy is struggling too,'" he said.

Reiser is also enjoying returning to the immediacy of the stage.

"The great thing about stand-up is you get to go out and try it out immediately. You don't have to develop it with a studio for eight months. If something strikes you as funny and you scribble some thoughts down, you try it on stage that night and then you find out. If there is anything there, people chuckle," he said.

Reiser is constantly jotting things down to be incorporated into his live show, but he has recently been inspired by his younger son leaving for college.

"I don't know if it's funny yet, but I know that I am so aware there is this ticking clock that he will soon be out of my eyesight. He makes fun of me because I watch him like a hawk. I'm thinking it's not quite good parenting. It's not bad parenting, but it's almost creepy," he said.

Reiser found that, just like when he started doing stand-up the first time, it started to lead to other projects.

"I don't know if it's a rule of life, but for me, when I do one thing suddenly all the other things pop up," he said.

Reiser can be seen on the second season of Netflix's hit "Stranger Things," which was released last October.

"I knew it was good. I knew they were great. It's a rare opportunity when somebody really talented offers you a roll in something they wrote for you in something you know is good," he said.

Reiser balanced his schedule of filming the series in Atlanta with a labor of love he was producing and writing in Los Angeles. "There's ... Johnny!" is based around the production staff of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The show is available on Hulu.

"The idea was to take a kid that was innocent as could be, who has never left the farm, literally, and drop him into this world that would be a very eye-opening experience," Reiser said. "It was a very interesting time. There was a lot of cultural upheaval, Watergate and women's lib and Vietman. It's funny, it seems almost quaint by what's going on now," he said.

The show uses original clips from The Tonight Show, as if those segments are what the staff is working on, so no actor plays Carson. These include interviews with favorites like George Carlin and Albert Brooks.

"It was a much slower pace. People would come on and sit there for 20-30 minutes. It wasn't plug your book and slide over," he said.

It was Reiser's own personal experience growing up with The Tonight Show that was his inspiration for "There's ... Johnny!"

"There was a time you couldn't record everything and you had to stay up ... and when you're a kid you have school the next day and you weren't always allowed to stay up. It was an exciting, almost forbidden treat," he said.

When Reiser started to do stand-up in New York, the Carson show looked like the place to be.

"There was something about that time for me and my peers, that watching Johnny was this magical place. It looked like there was a great cocktail party going on every night and there was Johnny, the master of what he did," he said.

Then Reiser got his shot to join the fun.

"When I was on the Tonight Show for the first time, it was a stamp of approval. It didn't turn my life around, it didn't open that many doors, it just felt like you got your college degree. You didn't get a job, but you got a degree," he said.

Return of 'Mad About You'?

And just as stand-up led to "Mad About You" once, there's a slight chance it may do so again. Reiser is in early talks to explore bringing the '90s sitcom he starred in with Helen Hunt back to the small screen. Reiser said the return depends on whether he can find a story to tell and if he thinks the audience would want to watch it.

"When you have a TV show that is a success for many years and you're in people's homes, there's a relationship. You feel an affinity for those people. It's a tricky proposition. It's not always best to return. I have great memories of high school, but I don't really want to go back there," he said.

However, through his stand-up he's finding new material.

"When you explore what's going on in your life, there is comedy to be mined," Reiser said, "I am enjoying exploring it in my stand-up, but I thought it might be fun to do on the show. It's a possibility, something we are talking about," Reiser said.